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Thursday, 15 October 2015

The Writing Life

At the moment I'm juggling two major projects - Dark Valleys, which is a commission from Pen and Sword Books and concerns historical murders that took place in and around the South Wales Valleys. The second is a novel, not a commission, something I'm writing on spec. The novel is entitled Down Among The Dead and is an attempt to bring back my character, Chief Inspector Frank Parade of the Glamorgan Constabulary. I first used Parade in the earlier novel, A Policeman's Lot which was published in paperback by Solistice Publishing before transferring over to Kindle with a new title, The Welsh Ripper Killings.

A Policeman's Lot was a kind of high concept crime novel, and relied on historical fact namely Buffalo Bill's Wild West Circus, Jack the Ripper and a coal miner uprising. The novel was set in 1907 and featured the character of Inspector Frank Parade.

I like Parade, like him a lot but struggled to find another story for him. The problem was that Parade was used as the main voice in the Ripper based story but he didn't really fit into that timeline. He was great for the plot but not so much the era.

Now I decided that my next crime novel, Down Among the Dead needed to be set in a different timeline - that of World War II period South Wales. This meant I couldn't use the character of Parade, I would need to create a new policeman. But I found I couldn't do that - I needed Parade and so I pushed A Policeman's Lot aside, decided to look upon it as a standalone novel and rebooted Parade, transporting him to a different time. In short I recreated Chief Inspector Frank Parade and placed the cranky old copper in the same environment but several decades later.

Below is a small extract from the work in progress.

July 1940

The night it all began, a fog had
descended over the hills and shrouded the entire valleys beneath an opaque
blanket. Dan Evans cursed as he climbed the fence, careful not to catch his
crotch on the barbed wire, and made his way across the field that was little
more than a bog. Usually the ground would be soft, swallowing up feet, and
stubbornly refusing to let go, but at the moment, several weeks into what was
shaping up to be a long hot summer, the ground was dry and hard. Not that it
was any easier to negotiate. The uneven ground was uncomfortable beneath Dan’s
feet, and several times he stumbled, having to throw his hands forward as he
fell into the thick grass and reeds that could poke an eye out.

‘Bloody
sheep,’ he muttered, and lifted his legs out of yet another hole. ‘Bloody sheep
and bloody fog.’

Dan
gazed into the darkness – moments ago it had been a clear moonlit night, but
this fog had come from nowhere. It rebounded the moonlight back at him, and
gave everything a bluish tinge. One moment he was peering into a murky soup and
the next he was shielding his eyes as if caught in the glare of the sun.

He
had to get his bearings.

No
point in wandering about with visibility being so poor.

It would be easy
for a person to get lost, even someone who knew the mountains as well as Dan.
And he knew them well, very well, he had walked them for more than thirty years
as both man and boy, but all the same on a night like this he might as well
have been in some foreign land. Nothing was the same in the fog. The landscape
itself seemed to mutate as dangers were created, where previously there had
been none.

He reached the
far end of the field, scaled yet another fence, and then sat down on the ground
to figure out just where he was going. He couldn’t see more than a few feet in
front of him and there seemed to be nothing but a wall of fog ahead. He did, of
course have a rough idea of where he was, but he couldn’t figure out in which
direction to go.

He was
completely disorientated. All this wandering about and he wasn’t at all sure in
which direction he’d crossed the field. Indeed, for all he knew he could have
gone full circle, and ended up back where he’d started. He fallen several times
and maybe he’d gotten back up, and then wandered off the way he had come. No,
he didn’t think that was the case. He’d gone west, he was sure of that, which
meant he should be above the old barn. It should be ahead of him, down the
banking and across the stream, and he guessed he’d shelter there.

‘Bloody sheep,’
he mumbled, again cursing the wayward animals.

They, those
stupid bloody beasts, were the reason he’d been up the mountain so late at
night, several of the dumb animals had wandered away from the flock, gone
through a break in the fence. They were always doing that which was a problem;
since there were several disused mine shafts and pot holes that they could fall
into. He couldn’t afford to lose any more animals like that, and so, after
repairing the fence, he’d gone off to search.

The fog had come
suddenly, without warning, and before he knew it he had only a vague idea of
where he was.

Dan sat there on
the ground for several minutes while he smoked a cigarette. He knew he was
breaking the strict blackout laws by smoking, but he didn’t figure there’d be
any wardens roaming about the mountain to challenge him and he doubted Jerry
planes would be passing overhead in this weather. His makings were damp and he
had to struggle to keep the smoke going. It tasted good as he drew the smoke
into his lungs, the nicotine serving to calm his frayed nerves.

Come on Danny
boy, he chided himself. You’re acting like an old woman. Anyone would
swear you’d never been up a mountain at night before; next thing you’ll be
jumping from the bogeyman.

But it was more than
that, the dark he could cope with, but this sodding fog was something else
entirely. It was darker than dark and had closed in so thickly that he felt
claustrophobic, and feared that if the fog became any denser he’d be unable to
breath. It would smother him, seep into his lungs where it would set with the
consistency of treacle.

He took his time
with the cigarette, and only when it was too small to hold without burning his
fingers did he toss it aside. He stood, holding the fence to steady himself while
he peered into the fog. Still, he was unable to see more than a foot or so
ahead.

Cautiously he
walked forward into the fog.

With each step he carefully felt the ground ahead of him, any moment
expecting a slope as he neared the banking that he was sure would be there, but
the ground beneath him remained level and eventually he reached yet another
fence which left him completely confused him as to where he was.

He willed
himself to stay calm, knowing there was no need to panic, that it would serve
no purpose and he could very well cause him an injury if he lost control of his
nerves. He was quite safe but all the same the fog was oppressive and seemed to
be closing in ever tighter.

Carefully he
climbed the fence and then dropped down the other side. He looked around, again
trying to pick out a landmark, anything that would give him some idea of where
he was, but there was nothing to be seen other than the murky shroud the fog
had thrown over everything. At times the fog seemed to clear slightly and you could
see through it but everything was out of focus, and didn’t help Dan at all in
pinpointing his location.

‘Bloody sheep,’
he muttered and started walking forward, figuring that if he kept moving he
would soon realise where he was. He listened to the night, trying to pick out
any sounds. He could hear the drone of one of the collieries in the distance,
but wasn’t sure which ones. There were several possibilities depending on
exactly where he was on Myndd Y Gaer.

He started
across the field and had gone maybe fifty yards when he was able to make out a
landmark just ahead of him. It was unmistakably the ruins of LlanbadChurch
– the four walls jutted out of the ground like cavity filled teeth and Dan
smiled. He had gone some way further than he had expected but all the same he
was glad to come upon the old building. Although the church was in ruins, all
that remained were the four walls, and exposed to the elements, he would be
able to find some limited shelter. If he crouched down behind one of the walls
he would be cosy enough until the fog cleared.

Dan climbed the
banking and entered the church grounds, stepping over ancient gravestones. The
old church dated back to Norman times but it was just shy of a century ago in
1844 that it had last been used for worship. It had originally rested in the
ancient parish of Coychurch but as villages had sprung up around the
surrounding areas, with their own churches and chapels, and boundaries were
redrawn, it had become even more remote and far less important. Over the years
it had fallen victim of the elements, a particularly ferocious storm in 1850
had taken the roof and in the years that followed much of the stone used in its
construction had been carried off by farmers to be used in building walls of
their own. Even the ancient gravestones that stood in its grounds had suffered
vandals and now many of then lay on the ground, their inscriptions too
weathered to read.

Dan reached the
church and went through the entrance where the heavy doors had once stood.
There was no roof above his head but he felt better with four walls around him
and he sat down, his back against a wall while he fished in his pockets for his
matches.

He struck one on
a stone and immediately recoiled in horror at the sight the sudden illumination
revealed to him. For there upon the ground was a most grisly sight – it was the
body of a man, his face pulped to a mush. That in itself was bad enough, but
the thing that brought Dan to a gibbering wreck were the maggots that could be
clearly seen, almost luminous in the light thrown by the match, as they
burrowed through the corrupted flesh.

Dan screamed.

The above is the opening to the novel in a rough draft form and I'm anticipating completion of the first draft sometime around Christmas - then it will be set aside while I concentrate solely on Dark Valleys. The finished manuscript has to be with the publishers by the end of January 2016 for publication sometime that year. There will be a lot of proofreading, editing and general pulling out of hair before the finished project arrives in stores gleaming and giving off that delicious aroma of brand new bookieness. And of course add to that workload another commission, Cardiff at War 1939 - 1945, again for Pen and Sword Books, and I guess you could say I have a heavy workload.

Hey, that's the way I like it. It took me too long to become a professional writer to complain about the work...now all I have to wait for is to become a successful writer and then I can give up this pesky day job of mine which takes up far too much of my time...time that could be better spent tapping the keys.

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GARY DOBBS/JACK MARTIN

Actor and novelist. As an actor I have appeared in Doctor Who, Torchwood, Gavin and Stacey, Moonmonkeys, Larkrise to Candleford, The Reverend, The Risen.
As a writer I write westerns for the Black Horse Western imprint using the name Jack Martin. Under my own name I am responsible for several novels including the popular Granny Smith series. And using the name Vincent Stark I have written some pretty disturbing stuff.

It's Miss Marple on steroids!

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